The 2018 U.S. senate election results yielded white men and women but no black and immigrant politician winners. This outraged some as they wanted ethnic diversity in the election.
Republicans emerged as the overall winners of the election, keeping their grasp on their majority seating in congress. After the election, they gained one seat in congress and the Democrats lost one. Although they lost, the democrats still have a major influence in congress with 47 seats to the Republicans 51. Despite the news coverage and drama surrounding the future of the government, many people are concerned over a different matter.
Ela Ersan, freshman, said, “It was great when the United States started to get political diversity within its political system because having diversity shows our government is open to equality. However, as a woman, I don’t feel like we are represented enough in our government.”
From July 4th, 1776, the founding of the United States of America, to 1870, politics in the U.S. were only open to white, male individuals. In 1870 Hiram Revel became the first black man to hold office. In 1916 Jeannette Rankin became the first women to hold office. She was followed by Hiram Fong who became the first asian to hold office in 1959. Since their appointments, many expected a sharp increase in the rise of diversity within politics, but despite making up only 31 percent of the population, white men make up 76 percent of all republican elected officials and 65 percent of all democratic elected officials.
Nihar Behere, junior, said, “A government made of predominantly white men cannot best represent a diversifying population. We need to vote in a greater variety of people if we are to best represent the ideals of America.”
PV students seem to be on the same wavelength in terms of their viewpoints on diversity within U.S. politics and most want to see further inductions of women, people of color, and people with different national backgrounds into the political system.
Devon Katragadda, freshman, said, “We still have room for improvement. Although I do think the U.S. has made huge strides in opening the door for other ethnicities and religions, it’s just all happening too slowly. I’m disappointing that we didn’t see a lot of diversity in this election.”
With countless elections to come, many hope that U.S. politics will branch out to include others, believing that the current political system has too much bias, sexism, and discrimination which hampers overall productivity of the government.
